Dahlia Schweitzer

Dahlia Schweitzer is a writer, teacher and former cabaret star who has toured widely in the Europe and the United States. Her books have been published by HarperCollins and Random House, while her academic and editorial essays appear regularly in film, fashion and lifestyle magazines in Germany and the United States. She recently completed a book about Cindy Sherman's film, Office Killer, to be published by Intellect Books in 2013.

Dahlia Schweitzer

TEL AVIV — It seems somehow fitting that all I have left of the current Douglas Gordon retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art are some snapshots on my phone and some scribbles in a notebook. As I struggle to figure out what to say about the show, I look through my artifacts, my memory shaped by what I’ve written and what I chose to photograph.

LOS ANGELES — What does it mean to be a revolutionary? How does one make an image of revolution? What are the parallels between religion and revolution? And does religion have a place in our current world?

LOS ANGELES — Somehow, our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have become life, liberty, and happiness. Happiness — not merely its pursuit — is now something to which we are entitled. Which we deserve. Which capitalism, with its eternal seduction, has convinced us should be available with each and every purchase. And if we are not happy, something (the right product? the latest gadget?) is missing. Because we should be happy all the time.

Camille Paglia, who famously polarized artists and intellectuals throughout the 1990s, is back. In her new book, Glittering Images, her mission is to bring closure to an era she feels is full of art-world stunts and isolating pretension, in exchange for a return to art-world appreciation among a general audience and beyond. For her, museums are the locus of this new evolution, and we could not agree more. If museums are the way by which people experience and understand art, and if we want to change that experience or simply get more people involved in it, we must begin by examining the interface.

LOS ANGELES — Cindy Sherman has been plagued by that one-hit wonder malaise that strikes so many musicians who deliver delightfully wonderful first albums only to follow-up with disappointing sophomore efforts as their careers predictably fade away. They leave behind only memories of that one hit, that one perfect pop tune, only to re-emerge, briefly, decades later, in a “Where Are They Now?” moment. The unusual thing about Sherman, however, is that she has not faded away.